China has reduced deaths among newborn babies by almost two-thirds in little over a decade — an unprecedented success rate that a new study says holds lessons for countries like India still struggling with high neonatal and maternal mortality rates. Deaths among newborn babies fell from 24.7 per 1,000 in 1996 to 9.3 in 2008 — a 62-per-cent decrease — according to a paper published in The Lancet medical journal on...

With the bureaucratic machinery failing to deliver desired results, the Centre is tapping professionals from the open market to ensure better implementation of its flagship programmes, National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM) and MGNREGA at both national and State level. It has invited letters for Expression of Interest (EOI) from qualified and experienced consultancy firms for management support for the NRLM which aims to mobilise seven crore below poverty level (BPL) households...

Have the National Law Schools, the counterparts of IITs and IIMs in the legal field, faltered in inculcating social responsibility in the bright young lawyers passing out from the prestigious institutions? Justice M K Sharma, a Supreme Court judge, feels so and has expressed strongly against the trend of "bright young law students" flocking to become corporate lawyers rather than opting for training in litigation. "Unfortunately, the statistics available indicate that 85%...

Lokpal provisions under consideration of the parliamentary standing committee could actually lead to significant delays in punishing erring bureaucrats, rather than speeding up the process. This would be among the key arguments from stakeholders who are expected to interact with the standing committee in the coming days. The constitution of the particular standing committee has been significantly delayed, forcing the presentations by CBI chief and central vigilance commissioner for the third...

The famine in the Horn of Africa is being seen as an inevitable consequence of drought, "the worst for 60 years". But this famine was almost entirely preventable, and presenting it as a natural disaster doesn't help; nor does our insistence on waiting for a major crisis before responding. Even though lessons about how to prevent famines have been documented time and time again, we don't learn. The conflict in Somalia...